The Complicated Legacy of Penny Arcade

Generally speaking, people don't want complexity in real life. They like things to be black and white, right and wrong. This person is scum, that person is a saint. Ordinarily, the cultural narrative follows suit. Celebrities who do vile things (like torturing and executing animals as part of an illegal dogfighting ring) are hailed as a story of redemption as soon as they right their ways (play well in a nationally televised game). Likewise, incredible acts of charity (like starting a non-profit organization and raising $500 million to fight cancer) are quickly offset by an apparently unforgivable lapse in turpitude (like cheating to win bike races where essentially everyone cheats anyway).

But sometimes, the cultural narrative gets messy. Such has been the case with Penny Arcade, which Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik started as a webcomic in 1998 and grew into a global brand with video game and merchandising tie-ins, three global Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) fan conventions a year, and a charity that raised more than $5 million last year to provide sick children with toys and games for the holidays. (They also started a new gaming website in the post-social media era, which we'll chalk up as neither good nor bad, but just nuts. Clearly.)

Penny Arcade: Forever young or just immature?

The easy cultural narrative for Penny Arcade is "Underdog Makes Good." From humble beginnings, two average gamers built an outsider empire adjacent to the gaming industry, a place for enthusiasts to share their love for games without fear of being scorned by the outside world. At its heart, this narrative is one of triumph driven by inclusion and acceptance, of prophets with no aspirations of power leading their outcast people to a promised land.

And just like that Biblical story, the narrative isn't as clean and cheery as all that. While they haven't had a dogfighting ring moment, Krahulik and Holkins do have a growing history of questionable acts, poor judgment, and vile comments. (On the comments front, Krahulik has seemed more eager to shove his foot in his mouth than Holkins, but like I said, cultural narratives disdain nuance, so Holkins winds up sharing blame as well, fair or not.)

While they haven't had a dogfighting ring moment, Krahulik and Holkins do have a growing history of questionable acts, poor judgment, and vile comments.

The most recent example is from last week, when a series of Krahulik's tweets drew the ire of the transgendered community. In defending the idea that gender is determined solely by physical anatomy, Krahulik dismissed anyone who used the word "cis," which refers to someone whose birth anatomy matched their gender identity. Krahulik added, "If you use the word 'cis,' I probably will hate you too."

That blew up, prompting Krahulik to post an email exchange with a transgender freelancer for the Penny Arcade Report, as if to say, "Some of my best friends are trans." He has since offered a couple more substantial apologies on the site, and pledged to donate $20,000 to The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention organization to prevent suicide among LGBT youth.

The whole affair felt like a rehash of the "dickwolves" controversy, where Krahulik and Holkins unintentionally offended people with a rape joke and, thinking it was no different from the rest of their off-color humor, got defensive and doubled-down instead of reflecting on the possibility that they had done something wrong.

Then there's the pair's position toward their fans, which at times borders on exploitive. Penny Arcade started PAX in 2004, with the inaugural event drawing fewer than 5,000 attendees. Now PAX Prime in Seattle and PAX East in Boston each draw 70,000 people annually, with the first PAX Australia scheduled for next month. Despite that insane growth, the event still relies on a volunteer security force of "Enforcers" instead of properly trained professional security. And of course, the pair have run two Kickstarter campaigns, one to take ads off the site, and another to fund the return of a popular podcast showing how they come up with their comics. The former campaign included a limited $7,500 reward tier that let contributors intern at Penny Arcade for a day (two such spots were offered; both were claimed), while the latter had a goal of $10, essentially turning it into an exercise in taking whatever money the fanbase was willing to part with for content that would cost them very little to produce.

The same candor and lack of calculation that makes their humor resonate with the masses means there's no filter to keep whatever narrow-minded prejudices they hold from slipping out into the light.

There are other things that could be said of the Penny Arcade creators, both good and bad. But unlike so many celebrities, whether inside gaming culture or out, they resist the quick and easy cultural narrative. The same candor and lack of calculation that makes their humor resonate with the masses means there's no filter to keep whatever narrow-minded prejudices they hold from slipping out into the light. But they are also clearly admirable for what they've done in building their business from scratch, in cheerleading the gaming community, and far beyond that, in working to help sick children.

Ultimately, Krahulik and Holkins are wildly successful entrepreneurs with an unconventionally straight-forward approach to business. They are adult men with an adolescent's inherent lack of empathy toward people outside their sphere of existence. They are social pariahs whose response to being ostracized was to build a beautiful community, even if it was done partly out of spite. They are leaving a complicated legacy, one deserving of tremendous pride and tremendous shame. They are ideal representatives of the game industry, because they are the game industry personified.

This article touches on a lot of topics, but in a very tentative manner. It feels like the first page of a much longer, more insightful article that got cut off. The dickwolves and cis controversies aren't really dealt with, and the accusations of audience exploitation aren't examined, just stated. Where's the beef?

@davidgreenwood80 I am of the same mind. I was not aware of Mr. Sinclair's prior credentials (upon research, it appears he worked at GameSpot beginning in the years I stopped visiting that site), but his prior articles here quickly set him apart as one of this site's editorialists to watch out for. I call out "Flying Laser Jesus" and "I wish Microsoft kept its awful Xbox One policies" as stand-out reads. While this article is about the same length as the prior two mentioned, I think the subject matter demands a little more wordage and a little more judgment (it's an editorial after all). It really does look like the intro to a much larger article or series of articles, ones I would very much love to read, Mr. Sinclair.

While there's certainly room for these sorts of articles (not to mention relevance due to PA's massive stature in the community), I can honestly say I'll probably avoid USgamer if they lean on pieces like this.

Editorials certainly have a place but have to be delicately handled--this one in particular doesn't present both sides of a factual argument as much as being an inflammatory/reactionary piece to a bit of a PR fiasco. It ranges from incendiary (social pariahs) to arbitrary (criticizing an acceptance of voluntary donations to a kickstarter).

I'm not liking this. Perhaps I am wrong to label US Gamer as the one "reasonable, mature and thoughtful" gaming website. But if that is what US Gamer wants to be, editorials like this aren't helping. It brushes over controversial issues like such as referring to the Dickwolves comic as "a rape joke" without really explaining anything, or covering Penny Arcade's defense of their comic. At the end it outlandishly decides to psychoanalyse them

"They are adult men with an adolescent's inherent lack of empathy toward people outside their sphere of existence. They are social pariahs whose response to being ostracized was to build a beautiful community, even if it was done partly out of spite"

Yeah, it's an editorial. But come on. By all means criticize them if you feel they have made some mistakes or done things you don't like. But to go inside their heads and claim to understand their motivation, is downright immature and very beneath this site. Like JetsDuck said. If articles like this are what USGamer is about, than it will likely not become my go-to site for games.

I tend to cut the PA guys some slack . . . they're human, they make mistakes, they seem to understand this, feel bad about it, try to not to do it again; I think that's more than can be said for many celebrities.

I go back and forth about the PA guys. I certainly enjoy the comic less than I did three or four years ago—it doesn't really feel like they have as much fun making the comics these days, and they've become commensurately less fun to read.

I do agree that this piece could have used some more time in the oven—it should have been expanded into a feature or guided into a much more focused editorial. As it is, it's not really much of anything.

"Tremendous shame"? That seems a little harsh. When I hear "a legacy deserving of tremendous shame" it brings to mind former concentration camp guards or mass murderers -- not a couple otherwise decent guys without a proper filter.Edited June 2013 by Unknown

Whenever PA clashes with the social justice crowd I tend to see them as the lesser of two evils- yeah, sometimes they (specifically Gabe) cross the line and say things they shouldn't, but the degree of demonization they get in return is ridiculously out of proportion.

I still defend a comedian's right to make any joke about "dickwolves" they care to, and am a big fan of the PA Forum community (which the two seem to disdain, unfortunately), but ultimately their tale is a one of rags to riches and making good on giving some back to charity. (Plus, with every ounce of respect possible to transgendered and LGBT folks, "cis" itself-just the word-*is* kind of ridiculous.) There's only so much I can complain about the two, and plenty to like.

Why was this article necessary? If I wanted to I could write something highly critical of Eurogamer as well, you've had enough stuff happen on that website to make for a nice, controversial article. But what purpose would it serve?

@EuroDarlan The real issue I had with the 'dickwolves' thing wasn't the comic itself (though I did think the imagery used was so dark that it overshadowed the actual joke, which was pretty funny). The problem was that when they were confronted with a public backlash they reacted by selling "Penny Arcade Dickwolves" hoodies. I could definitely see how someone would not want to attend PAX if they could run into a group of mouth-breathing dudes wearing hoodies proclaiming that they were rapists.

Thankfully, it's all water under the bridge, the hoodies are off the site, and we've all moved on. But this is more evidence that this article needed to delve into the various issues it touched upon much more deeply than it did.Edited 4 times. Last edited June 2013 by Unknown

I was quite excited to read this article, but I have to admit to being let down. I agree with everyone else: this one needed more elaboration.

The Dickwolves controversy started as something fairly petty that blew up into an embarrassing mess that Mike and Jerry seem to be trying to ignore rather than properly apologize for.

The most recent event, however, I think is a totally different story. Mike said some really awful, ignorant things, and as a long time PA fan, I can't express the disappointment I felt at the time. His initial half apology in the form of a back and forth with Sophie Prell felt like a knee jerk reaction more than a sincere apology, but it was obvious then that his remarks came from a place of immaturity and ignorance rather than one of hatred. However, his follow up apology to me seems sincere and heart felt. He said shitty things and is doing what he can to right his wrongs. He's not ignoring his mistakes this time; he seems to be trying to honestly take responsibility for them.

Yes, he is a man with a massive platform that needs to be more careful with it. His remarks are hurtful and can have real lasting harm in our culture. But, they both do so much good that I think it would be wrong to dismiss their apology and growth. Labelling them as villains will do no good: encouraging them to grow and learn as leaders of a culture, especially when they seem receptive and willing, will do much more good in the end.